János Bali was born in Budapest in 1963. After specialising in Mathematics at the Mihály Fazekas Grammar School, he went on to study math at Loránd Eötvös University, gaining his degree in 1988. Has studied recorder and Baroque flute with Vilmos Stadler and Anneke Boeke and attended chamber music classes given by György Kurtág, as well as courses by Hans Maria Kneihs (recorder), Barthold Kuijken (Baroque flute), and Péter Eötvös and Helmuth Rilling (conducting).

Founder and conductor of the Ars Nova chamber choir (1982-1993), which he directed in works by, among others, Bach, Schütz, Monteverdi, Dowland, Josquin, Isaac, Obrecht, Ockeghem, Busnoys, Dufay and Dunstable. In 1993 he founded the A.N.S (Ars Nova
secunda) chorus.

He is a regular guest-conductor with the Gödöllõ Symphony Orchestra, which specialises in Baroque music and the Viennese classics, and this collaboration has resulted in a CD: The Viennese Classical Symphony in Hungary.

As recorder player and Baroque flautist, Bali is a regular concert performer, both as soloist and in chamber groups and period-instrument orchestras, with appearances in Hungary, numerous European countries and the USA, as well as on a number of discs. He is artistic director of an ensemble specialising in Medieval and contemporary music which has commissioned pieces by a number of composers of note (L. Vidovszky, Gy. Kurtág, A. Soós, Á. Kondor, R. Clemencic).

Since 1988 he has sung with Schola Hungarica, appearing as soloist on a number of discs.
Bali teaches recorder and chamber music at the Chopin Music School in Gödöllõ and the Péter Veres Grammar School in Budapest. He is author of a recorder tutor and has published several recorder scores, one of which was a winner in the 1998 competition for score-transcription organised by the American National Flute Society. He regularly lectures on Renaissance and Baroque music and has also written some articles. In 1998 he was joint winner of the Pedagogical Research Prize awarded by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.